Mind — A Subtle Part of Our Existence
Life is impossible without thoughts. The moment a person is brain dead and the thinking process of a human being ends, then everything comes to a standstill. It is the mind that creates thoughts that lead to feelings and then actions. If we truly want to live, we must understand the ‘mind’. What is the mind? It is a thought factory. It is constantly producing thoughts. It produces one thought practically every second and this can sometimes be up to 50,000 thoughts a day.
While we are all aware of our mind, have we ever seen it? The Mind seems to exist. It worries and it wanders. But where is the mind, we cannot find. While it is commonly believed that the mind is in the brain, or is a part of it, thoughts appear to us from every part of the body. Our 5 senses trigger thoughts and thus, even if our toe steps on a moving creature, the mind triggers a thought. It seems that all the neurons and the sense receptors of our body are connected to the software — the mind. The mind is both positive and negative. It creates thoughts that are both productive and destructive, and this depends on the raw material that we feed our mind. If we feed the mind with NEP — Negative Energy Poison, then it will produce poisonous thoughts. Some of the NEP emotions are fear, worry, anxiety, hate, revenge, jealously, and anger. Instead, if we feed our mind with positive emotions like courage, confidence, optimism, enthusiasm, faith, hope, compassion, and love, our mind will produce PEP — Positive Energy Power that will produce positive thoughts. Therefore, we have a choice to control what we think, although most of us are unaware of how our thought factory works.
We also have another invaluable weapon which is the intellect. While most people think that the mind is the subtle part of our body and different from our hands, feet, and head which is our gross body, we do not discover that the subtle body is made up of 4 different entities: the Mind, Intellect, Memory, and Ego. The intellect is the tool to discriminate thought. It is a gift that only human beings are blessed with and it facilitates us to choose as we differentiate good from bad, the myth from the truth.
Therefore, while the mind often jumps like a monkey from one thought to another. It has a habit of jumping into a past that is gone, and a future not yet born. The mind can sometimes be a rascal as it produces aggressive thoughts that create stress and anxiety for a human being. It is the intellect that can stop such thoughts from becoming feelings that will make us regret and worry and live with anxiety. Those reading this for the first time may be surprised because they have always thought that the mind is King, it is everything! Unfortunately, they have confused the mind with the intellect. Therefore, while the mind is a very important aspect of our life, unless it is reined by our intellect, it will gallop with the 5 horses of our senses and become uncontrollable. It is only a properly disciplined and controlled mind that can think right and lead us to our destination.
A human body needs both hardware and software to live. If the body had no mind, we would limp. And if the mind did not have the body, we would not perceive it. But because of the subtle nature of the mind, the world today questions the existence of the mind. We can look at a mirror and see our eyes, nose, ears, hands, and feet. We can even take an X-ray and see our heart, kidneys, and brain, but has anyone seen a picture of the mind? We human beings do not doubt the existence of our mind.
Not only does the mind make us act when we are awake, it also causes fantasies and nightmares when we sleep. This is supposed to be the subconscious mind that doesn’t even sleep when the body does. If we want to make the best of our life, we must learn to control the mind. We must make the monkey mind into a monk. Then we can introspect and contemplate life, as we live with peace, joy, and bliss.
